And I so understand what you mean about becoming complacent. I was just looking at a tremendous photographer’s portfolio on IG this morning and I realized I immediately felt...down? Defeated? Like a failure? Does that happen to you often? You mentioned thinking life could always get better. I think I suffer with that as well. It used to be on both a personal and professional level and now it’s only on a professional level (which is good) but seriously, I feel like I actively avoid success sometimes. Does that make sense? I just can’t seem to get on the internet anymore without stumbling on someone’s fantastic body of work and seeing that they’re somehow doing that for a living (no 9-5 bullshit). How did they do that? How did that happen? How come I’m working a mind-numbing job that’s constantly draining my creativity for hardly any money and they’re not? And then of course I follow that dark rabbit hole down until I reach the inevitable “well, it’s probably because I’m simply not that good” and that’s soul-crushing. And then I have trouble accepting that, so I reason that maybe it’s because I’ve really just never tried very hard (which is a fact in a lot of ways)...because I guess I’ve just always been scared of not having the reliable paycheck...no matter the meagerness of the salary. And then I sadly conclude it’s likely a combination of the two and I’m moved to tears.

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I met Melissa, this red-lipped, beautifully inked, raven-haired woman less than 6 months ago. One day, nearly two months ago she confessed her love to me for Banksy’s balloon girl. She said she was dying to recreate it in a photograph for someone special to her, but wanted a snowy-filled backdrop. She wanted that vibrant red heart balloon to pop off a clean white setting.

My husband and I recently participated in an Atlas Obscura event to get a peek inside the Wonder View Tower in Genoa, Colorado. I'd actually never heard of this place before a friend sent me a link for the AO tour event only days prior to the meet-up. Needless to say, I was hooked and immediately bought tickets.

"Looking down these dreary passages, the dull repose and quiet that prevails, is awful. Occasionally, there is a drowsy sound from some lone weaver’s shuttle, or shoemaker’s last, but it is stifled by the thick walls and heavy dungeon-door, and only serves to make the general stillness more profound. Over the head and face of every prisoner who comes into this melancholy house, a black hood is drawn; and in this dark shroud, an emblem of the curtain dropped between him and the living world."

“Human lives are not pieces of string that can be separated out from a knot of others and laid out straight. Familes are webs. Impossible to touch one part of it without setting the rest vibrating. Impossible to understand one part without having a sense of the whole.” ―Diane Setterfield

The trip was of course, wonderful, until the last 30 minutes of the drive home when Serenica's engine began stalling on us whenever we'd drop beneath a certain speed (hoping it's a minor fix!). Fortunately, after stalling out on several occasions and getting it restarted again, she died right inside our RV storage lot gate and wouldn't turn over.

I probably don't need to say here that I absolutely could not have predicted that it would have been 14 more months before we were ready to post the After shots, but I'm going to say it anyway: I had no idea how long this beast would actually take us to complete.

And then a woman appeared on the barren land, with seeds in her teeth, and each limb a root in search of earth to plant themselves. And then a woman appeared on the barren land, and not from the rib of any man, and not for his pleasure or to come to his aid, for without woman, there is no life, and there is no man.